Pinterest 101 for Business: Focus on Your Target Audience’s Interests

January 21, 2015

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One of the biggest challenges that business owners have in the early stages of operating their Pinterest business accounts is trying to figure out what content to create.


As a Pinterest consultant I get this question asked over and over. How long will take for me to get traffic to my website from Pinterest? You know the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day”… well that holds true for your Pinterest business account as well. For starters, Pinterest is not just about pushing your products and services. Brands and businesses need to focus on your target audience’s interests. Figure out how you can help them pursue those interests. Offering helpful advice makes you their trusted resource.


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A great example of this is Ziploc. Ziploc has only nine boards with only 960 pins and they have attracted over 32,486 followers. They do a great job of showing you how to use Ziploc to make your life easier. Get it?  This helpful focused, indirect selling approach is everything on Pinterest.


Home organization is a popular trending topic this time of the year and they show you how to free up valuable real estate by storing infrequently used items in large Ziploc Space Bags. They are not shoving product pictures at you from every angle but what they are doing is showing you helpful tips on how to use their product into your everyday life to help you get more organized.


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People will follow you if they share similar interests. Find out what your target audience’s interests, aspirations, struggles and needs are. Ask them directly. And forget about pushing your products for a moment. One of the ways to find out what your audience interests are is by going to Pinterest’s analytics which is offered to businesses whose sites are verified. Go to “Analytics”.


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Then click “Your Audience”, then “Interests” and you’ll find 18 of the most popular topics that your audience loves. Here’s a tip I have for you. If you are just starting out on Pinterest and you only have a handful of followers this might not be the most accurate assessment of your Pinterest audience. I would wait until you have at least 1,000 followers to use this as a guide for curating pins.


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Here’s a study to consider. According to RJ metrics, from a data set of 50,000 random pinners and their pins that 92% of pins (images) are made by women on Pinterest. Here’s what they’re pinning:



  • 20% Food and Drink category
  • 12% DIY & Crafts
  • 11% Home Decor

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Key Takeaway: Create the top ten boards as shown in the graph above. This is especially important when you are just starting on Pinterest. Creating these types of boards is like saying “hey we have the same interests as you”. It’s a starting point to engage with an audience that will hopefully turn into brand advocates for you once they get to know and trust you better. In time this will yield more Pinterest followers for you.


Key business takeaway, the more followers you get in general the greater the odds a growing % of them are your exact target audience.  This is good.


If you’re just starting out on Pinterest here’s some things to keep in mind when curating content:



  1. Be authentic. Create content that represents what you value and what inspires you as a brand or business.
  2. Create content around trending topics. 67% go on Pinterest to keep up with the latest trends. With that kind of massive traffic; enterprises, bloggers, marketers and business owners would profit if they could find ways to leverage that to get more repins & followers.
  3. Check out what your competition is doing. Which boards have the most followers? What pins are getting the most repins?

If this is overwhelming for you and you feel like you are going around and around with Pinterest and not getting anywhere please contact me a Pinterest consultant about my Pinterest management services or to learn more about my Pinterest Marketing Course for Business.


Thank you and good luck. “Pin with a caring heart” and you’ll make more money with Pinterest!

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